


Carried Out Under Controlled Conditions

by Mirradin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (kind of), Breeding, Dehumanization, Dubious Consent, F/F, Medical Kink, Merpeople, Merpeople aren't considered sentient by scientists in this, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Oviposition, Pidge is a Mature Mermaid, Science Kink, Teasing, inappropriate use of a paintbrush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12973362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirradin/pseuds/Mirradin
Summary: The Altaea Merfolk Research Institute is dedicated to the preservation of the merfolk species. The Intitute's only mermaid is ready to lay her eggs. Allura is ready to collect said eggs for her breeding program.And maybe have a little extra fun along the way.





	Carried Out Under Controlled Conditions

Allura closes the door to the lab behind her and locks it with a turn of the key. It’s probably not necessary, since all six of the doors between this room and the outside world require access cards with variously strict levels of clearance to open, but you can never be too careful. She’s certainly not taking risks with _this_.

It’s late at night, and the main lights have been turned off. A few station lamps and active computer screens provide enough light for Allura to make her way through the room without trouble. Apart from the hum of electronics and the quiet lapping of water, her own footsteps are the only sound in the room as she approaches the massive sunken pool that takes up half the lab.

A splash breaks the quiet, and Allura catches a glimpse of blue scales vanishing back under the low wall of the pool. Somebody’s still up and about. She smiles before she can help it, quickening her pace.

A few feet before the main pool, a series of smaller holding tanks has been set up, spaced at wide intervals. Each tank has the same construction, with a tangle of pipes feeding into one end to pump in water, and metal chute at the other end to drain the overflow. Four of the tanks stand silent and empty, but the status lights on the one second from the left shine cheerfully green, and Allura can hear the quiet splashing of water spilling from the overflow chute into the main pool.

Her work station has already been set up nearby, with most of the tools and equipment she’ll need neatly laid out. The clamps and tubing have been sterilised, and the small wheeled tank with its mechanical attachment is waiting on the floor.

There are a few other items she’s planning to use that Allura’s not _entirely_ sure the Institute would approve of, but those are stowed in the bag slung over her shoulder.

Another splash from the main pool is accompanied by red fins slapping the surface of the water. Heavens, but they’re excited today.

Allura can hardly fault them for that. She’s been looking forward to this for quite some time. It’s going to be a fascinating new exploration, and now that she’s here she can hardly wait to get started.

She settles her bag on her work station, and leans over her current project.

The Institute’s one and only, incredibly valuable mermaid is lying flat on her back in the shallow tank, comfortably relaxed against the moulded bottom. Her clever hands are held over her head, folded into soft plastic mittens and locked against the wall of the tank, but for once the mermaid seems utterly unbothered by the restraints. She isn’t even fidgeting, her beautiful green tail lying still in its custom-moulded support. Sleepy brown eyes slide sideways when Allura steps up to the tank, but the mermaid seems content not to react further.

Allura takes a moment to admire the view. The mermaid’s hands are folded out of sight, but her fine-boned wrists are visible, and the stretched position leaves the whole front of her body exposed and on display. The mermaid’s face is sleepy and satisfied, her brown hair fluttering in the current as fresh water emerges from the grate under her pinned hands. The long gill slits marching from the back of the jaw down to the delicate collarbones pulse slowly.

The scales begin roughly where the hips would be on a human, the first few small and nearly the same colour as her skin, but that quickly grow to dark green scales the size of Allura’s thumbnails. The mermaid’s tail is long and narrow, fins rippling idly in the current. Even with it, the mermaid is small for her species, barely more than eight feet long. She’s a dainty thing, fine-boned and astonishingly nimble in the water, but Allura knows from experience that the muscles corded under that pale skin are surprisingly tough.

The breeding slit under her belly is swollen, the usually-flat edges distended and raised. A younger Allura would have blushed to notice that, but now it’s simply a fact. That’s why she’s here, after all. Well, that and the almost-imperceptible bulge in the mermaid’s tail, just below the restraining belt that holds her in place.

“Hello there,” Allura greets the mermaid, smiling as she sets the bag down. Unprofessional of her, she knows, but it’s hard not to talk to the mers during testing, and especially when one of them is all spread out and lovely for her.

At the sound of her voice the mermaid stirs, opening her eyes fully and focusing on Allura with lazy curiosity. She’s been slow and satiated since mating, and something fierce in Allura _thrills_ at seeing her this way, at the easy languor in that lovely body. At the open and obvious _pleasure_ the mermaid had worn earlier, clinging tight to the yellow-finned male.

Though that’s hardly relevant. Allura’s here to collect the necessary materials for her breeding programme. Nothing else.

She sits down and shrugs off her long-sleeved jacket before snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. The tank isn’t very deep, and the mermaid looks out at the world through no more than eight inches of water. Easy access is essential to this stage.

“I hope you’re comfortable,” she tells the creature. “Do you remember how things turned out, the last time you bred?”

The first time the mermaid had become sexually receptive had also been the Institute’s first glimpse into merfolk reproduction. It had been an instructive event. It had also been a complete failure.

The first sign that something was up had been when the males started stripping the kelp from the floor of the habitats, weaving loose, billowing baskets into the remaining fronds. A few days after that started they had started showing off, flaring their fins in the light whenever the mermaid approached, chasing each other around the pools and twisting in and out of the kelp fronds in startling displays of agility.

Allura had missed the first stages of the actual breeding process – by the time she’d arrived, the mermaid had made her decision, and she and the red-scaled merman who’d been collected from an Indonesian coral reef were flush against each other, belly to belly, their tails intertwined in a beautiful twist of colour. Each of them had had one arm wrapped around the other’s shoulders and was gripping at a handhold on the wall of the aquarium with the other. It’d been a beautiful sight, but Allura hadn’t missed the awkward way they held each other. Clearly, neither the mermaid nor her chosen mate had had much experience.

Their startled pleasure had been truly sublime. Unfortunately, that lack of experience was almost certainly why the clutch had failed.

The mermaid whistles softly, as if she’s answering Allura’s question. She’s been restrained in her access tank since she separated from her partner this morning. Both of them were slow and clumsy after mating; usually the mermaid is tricky to catch, but today the divers were able to get the harness on her fairly easily. Her mate made a few token efforts to chase them away, but nothing serious enough to be dangerous. Nobody who works here will take the slightest chance of harming the merfolk, and by now all of them are accustomed to the access tanks. From the look of her, the mermaid may have even been dozing before Allura came in, pretty thing.

If the last time was a reliable indicator, she should be ready to lay fairly soon. It’s possible that the interval might have been off the first time, Allura supposes – a first breeding attempt can go wrong fairly easily in a lot of species – but she doesn’t mind waiting. After all, they have all night.

And this is a _very_ important investigation. No point in rushing. She’ll need to be thorough.

Very thorough. It’s absolutely essential.

Allura rolls her sleeves up past her elbows, takes a deep breath, and reaches into the tank.

The mermaid watches her hand lazily, from beneath heavy lids. It’s unusual, for her. The mermaid is a lively, alert creature most of the time. She likes to investigate her surroundings; the technical staff have had to replace a fair amount of equipment after the mermaid took an interest in it. The lassitude overwritten on those normally attentive features is…well.

It’s a pleasant sight. Allura smiles and begins her examination.

She starts with the slight bulge in the mermaid’s tail, where the mermaid’s hips narrow into scales. Presumably that’s a result of the fertilised egg mass inside, though it’s hard to make out; Allura skims her fingers over the scales, finding an absolutely normal temperature and minimal distortion of the tail. She presses down gently, finding the usual resistance of solid, powerful tail muscles.

Pushing slightly harder yields a reward. Something shifts unexpectedly, and the tail flexes briefly under her hand before relaxing. Allura moves her fingers further up, and finds it again.

“Can you feel that?” she asks idly, pressing down again. The mermaid frowns slowly, her eyes drifting from Allura’s hand up to her face. The muscles of her tail flex again, a wave of tension running from her hips down to her fins, and Allura feels the brief contraction under her fingertips.

“Those are your eggs,” she tells the mermaid. “I expect you’ll be ready to lay soon, won’t you?”

The mermaid shifts her weight and lets out a soft whistle.

Allura probes the tail for a few moments, charting the extent of the bulge. Honestly, it’s hard to tell anything through those dense caudal muscles. Even with all her hands-on experience, Allura’s hard-pressed to determine where the egg mass ends. The muscles beneath the scales are relaxed, with no tremors that might signal the onset of egg-laying. After a minute she relents.

All good so far. Time to move on to the next stage of the evening.

Her heart rate picks up slightly as she trails her fingers down the mermaid’s tail. This is what she’s been looking forward to, ever since the mermen started displaying last week. She trails her hand further down the tail, lower and lower, until she’s tracing the swollen edge of the mermaid’s breeding slit.

A sharp shudder runs down the length of the mermaid’s tail, a flexing convulsion of muscles that would splash water all over the floor if she wasn’t firmly strapped down. The belts that hold her in place barely stretch. Allura looks up at the mermaid’s face, and smiles. The mermaid’s expression is still somewhat dazed, but her previously hazy brown eyes are focused completely on Allura, wide and surprised.

Smiling, Allura meets those eyes and changes direction, dragging her finger slowly up the other side of the slit.

The mermaid makes a long, low creaking noise that breaks up into sharp clicks when Allura deliberately rubs over the swelling. She blinks hard, more of the daze clearing from her face. Allura strokes down again, still not dipping her fingers inside, and watches in fascination as the mermaid’s gills flutter rapidly.

It’s beautiful.

Allura gives the mermaid a minute to acclimate to the sensation, circling the breeding slit lightly. The mermaid blinks a few times, clearly still foggy – it must be hormonal, that dreaminess, some built-in result of the breeding process – though what specific aspect of breeding triggers it? Insemination? Penetration? Or could it be a response to the internal pressure of the fertilised eggs?

Oh – that last one is a pleasant thought. It _would_ be nice to see if she can trigger the same response in the males. The black-finned male would be rather easier to get into his access tank if there were some way of inducing the mermaid’s heavy languor in him. And it would be a nice change to see him like this. The oldest of their mermen is heavily scarred – Allura honestly doesn’t know what their counterparts at the Galra Research Institute were thinking, treating _any_ merman like that, let alone such a fine specimen – but he’s beautifully well-formed nonetheless. That expression of drowsy pleasure would suit him quite well.

Ah, well. Something to keep in mind for the future. Allura stows the thought away and goes back to teasing the opening with a gloved finger, stroking lightly and watching the mermaid’s brows furrow in frustration. She becomes more alert as Allura works, tugging restlessly on her mittened hands and shaking her head as if to clear the daze from it.

“Do you like that?” Allura asks mildly.

No response from the mermaid, though that’s hardly unexpected. It’s hardly required, either. Allura shrugs and turns to her workstation, picking one of the unauthorised instruments she smuggled in earlier. It’s a paintbrush, with a thick stem and dense, soft bristles. Allura parts the bristles with her thumb and turns back to the tank.

The mermaid shivers when the brush sweeps over her lips. Allura trails the brush up to the top of her slit…presses down gently, easing the bristles in with her thumb, and gives the brush a delicate twirl. The mermaid closes her eyes, hips squirming. Allura spins the brush again, smiling.

She experiments for a while. Teasing with the brush makes the mermaid bite her lip, face screwing up in very human frustration. Slower, firmer strokes make her jaw gape wide, little whistles reverberating off the tank’s walls. Putting aside the brush to rub one finger down the breeding slit, just barely dipping inside, has the mermaid throwing her head back while she tries to arch into the pressure.

Allura pauses long enough to pick up a clamp. It’s a simple task to open up the breeding slit with her fingers and gently fix the rubber-lined jaws of the clamp over one lip, then adjust the length of the shaft and fix the end to the wall of the tank. A few moment’s work and the mermaid’s breeding slit is open to Allura’s eyes, regardless of her twitching tail.

“There we go, now,” Allura murmurs, stroking down the inside of one lip. The mermaid clicks rapidly, dropping her head back.

Allura pauses for a moment to examine her findings. She’s seen the male breeding slits plenty of times, but she’s never had the chance to open up and examine a female before.

The entrance to the brooding pouch is easy to find, taking up most of the internal space. It’s larger than in the males, with a more well-defined musculature. Currently the muscles are clamped down tight to keep the milt in with the eggs until fertilisation is guaranteed. It’ll relax soon enough.

Below that, the anatomy is new. The males have semi-retractable organs that withdraw into a sheath when not in use, with a pair of hooklike clasping appendages tucked just inside the slit. The mermaid has a similar pair of claspers, subtly different in shape, folded up just under the clamps holding her open, but where the sheath would be in a male, the mermaid has ridges of soft tissue, curving delicately down to a bump at the base of the slit.

“Well,” Allura murmurs. She reaches down and traces a finger across the inside of the lip of the breeding slit, skirting the rubber bit of the clamp. “I wonder what this does?” she says softly, and gently strokes one of the pink ridges of flesh. The mermaid shudders. “Or this?” Allura asks, working one of the claspers free and rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. The clasper twitches and Allura lets it go, smiles at the mermaid’s dazed face. “What about this?” she inquires, and lightly flicks the nub of raised flesh at the bottom of the breeding slit.

The mermaid lets out a fusillade of clicks like a _shout_ at that, her head curling forward and her tail thrashing as much as it can in its bonds. Her eyes squeeze shut briefly, and when they open again it’s in a slack, dazed face.

Allura goes back to the paintbrush for a while. It’s more fun. She trails it lazily up and down the ridges of pink tissue, enjoying the way the flesh twitches and flushes under the stimulation. The mermaid throws her head back and forth, whistling and clicking but not in pain. Allura is unfortunately familiar with how a mer in pain sounds, and that high shrilling keen is nothing close to this. These little noises have a helpless, shivery quality that thrills down Allura’s spine. She almost wishes she could get a recording.

Hmm. Maybe next time. The vocal analysis team might find the data interesting as well; she knows they’re always after a wider sample range.

For now…She swirls the paintbrush around that little nub and smirks when the mermaid lets out a warbling whistle that breaks apart at the end. The long ridges of flesh contract briefly, straining for contact. Allura lifts the brush away teasingly until everything relaxes, then draws the barest tip of the tuft down one ridge. Very, very slowly.

The mermaid makes one final effort to arch up into the teasing sensation, body drawing out in a tight exquisite line from her fins to her sleek tail to her abdomen to her yearning face…and then she slumps back against the base of the tank, limp and trembling. Her pupils, under heavy eyelids, are blown out wide.

Allura taps the paintbrush mischievously and admires the mermaid’s bitten-red lip.

Perhaps it’s time for a _little_ mercy.

The mermaid shudders when Allura touches her, paintbrush placed aside in favour of her own gloved hands. The paintbrush is a lot of fun for teasing, but for a proper examination there’s no tool like her own fingers. She thumbs one of the ridges and hums contemplatively.

She’s familiar enough with the male anatomy to see where the potential similarities are. The unfused ridges in the female are probably a counterpart to the sheath and organ in the male. The tissues are clearly sensitive – the mermaid’s reactions to her teasing are ample proof of that – though just _how sensitive_ isn’t entirely clear. That’s not important right now; she knows enough. How can she get the greatest effect?

She rubs her fingers gently up and down two of the ridges, getting a feel for the texture. The reactions she got with the paintbrush were fun, but this way she can feel every twitch under her fingertips. The mermaid clicks quietly, but lies still, probably too worn-out to wriggle into the touch.

Hmm. Allura steals another look at that dazed face, evaluating. Then she works her thumb down between two of the ridges, wriggling her index finger down on the other side of the ridge, and squeezes lightly. The next couple of clicks are sharper, and Allura nods in satisfaction. Slowly, she works her hand along the ridge, thumb and forefinger massaging gently.

By the time she’s finished repeating the motion on the other ridges and worked her way back to the first, the mermaid has recovered enough to move again. Allura stills her fingers for a moment and watches indulgently as the mermaid squirms into her touch, desperate for pressure, for _friction_. She’s such a lovely thing when she’s all worked up, helpless and writhing in her tank. Allura almost thinks she could spend a few more pleasant hours like this, teasing the mermaid, watching her quiver and twist.

Ah, well. Unfortunately, she does have a time limit tonight. Perhaps another time.

The mermaid whistles frantically under the water, and Allura rubs her again. They don’t have much time left – the eggs should be coming soon, and the mermaid has done very well tonight. She’s earned a reward.

Allura lowers her other hand into the tank and presses her thumb to the nub at the base of the mermaid’s breeding slit. She’s been avoiding it so far, not wanting to end the game to soon, but the mermaid’s responses to the paintbrush were quite telling. A few firm, quick circles are all it takes…

The mermaid tenses, then bucks, then shudders hard. Her shoulders go rigid and her fins flare out wide. Her mouth falls open again, gills flaring, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling as her body wrings down tight and she comes apart under Allura’s hands. Her voice breaks apart, a series of stuttering whistles that Allura’s only ever heard her make earlier today, when the yellow-finned male eased their bodies together. The mermaid’s face is undone with pleasure and Allura watches, rapt, only her thumbs still moving as she draws it out for as long as she can.

She barely notices the sudden activity behind her, a brief series of splashes as the males respond to the mermaid’s calls. Everything she wants is laid out in front of her, trembling and glorious.

The mermaid relaxes slowly, sagging down against the moulded bottom of the tank. Allura lifts her hands away, not wanting to risk the pressure becoming unpleasant. The mermaid blinks heavily, turning her head, before her eyes fall shut. She’s….probably not unconscious, but clearly exhausted.

Allura finds that rather flattering.

She stands back up and studies the mermaid again, from her captured wrists, down her slender arms and small breasts, over her hips and the sweep of her tail down to her moss-green fins. The mermaid’s whole body is slack with the aftermath of pleasure. _Allura_ did that to her. Allura drove the mermaid to the brink and over it.

She examines the mermaid’s hips again, the bulge between them, the clamped-open breeding slit, and the tell-tale muscular ripples of – oh, _crap._

Allura lunges for her equipment just as the mermaid’s eyes fly open, fumbling the attachments open and making the connections between the access tank and the portable one just as the first proper laying contraction ripples between the mermaid’s hips. She flips the lid open and sets up the rest of her equipment inside the tank with practiced haste, racing against the contractions now rolling regularly down the scaled tail. Last time it didn’t take too long before the eggs started emerging, and while she can gather and transfer them if they float around the tank, if she leaves it too long the current will carry them into the main pool and she’ll _never_ recover them. Just a little more –

She snaps the last piece of gear into place, securing a net between the clamps holding the breeding slit wide, and an egg emerges from the brood pouch.

It’s slightly larger than a golf ball, medium grey with a pearly iridescence to it. It’s larger than the last few Allura saw, but then those were dead, turning brown and shrinking as their contents rotted. This – hopefully – is viable. Allura traps it deftly, guiding it into a scoop, then lifts it out of the access tank and transfers it carefully to the portable tank she prepared earlier.

Last time, the whole clutch failed. Allura’s here to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Merfolk are too rare – not to mention too hard to capture from the wild, on the occasions when they do appear – for them to waste time and eggs while their small shoal figures out how to build a proper nest and how to give the eggs the best chance of hatching. Allura and the other researchers will do that now.

The inside of the portable tank is lined with fronds of kelp, their ends anchored in a nutrient system that will keep them alive for at least a few weeks. More severed fronds are woven between them; the analysts weren’t sure whether live or dead kelp would be better for the eggs, so Allura’s using an even amount of each. It’s a crude method, unfortunately, but this way at least fifty percent of the eggs will have the conditions they need. She’d prefer not to risk so much, especially with creatures as close to extinction as the merfolk, but needs must. She can refine her methods with the next clutch. At least this way _some_ of them will survive.

She folds the egg carefully into a living kelp frond, mimicking the movements both merfolk used last time as closely as she can. She secures the fold with an adhesive specifically tested to be harmless to mer stem cells, in lieu of the male’s saliva. Not ideal, but the best she can do. She gathers her scoop and returns to the mermaid.

The next few dozen eggs emerge in a steady stream, and Allura’s kept busy for half an hour collecting them and folding them safely away. She finds the mermaid’s clumsiness with her first clutch easier to understand now – the eggs are _delicate_ , and tucking them into the kelp is a meticulous job, made harder by the need to keep up with the constant supply of new eggs. The mermaid clicks grumblingly the whole time, and occasionally tugs on her bound hands as if with the urge to sit up and handle the eggs herself. Allura is almost tempted to let her.

Finally, though, the stream of eggs slows and then stops. Allura slides a couple of fingers inside the brood pouch – getting a surprised whistle – and feels around, but can’t find any more. That’s all of them, then: Sixty-five merfolk eggs, an improvement on fifty-three the first time, all tucked safely inside a condition-controlled tank and ready to be nurtured. That’s better than she was hoping for, honestly.

The water inside the holding tank is misty with milt that slipped out with the eggs. It shouldn’t do any harm, but Allura leaves the tube running between the two tanks for a few more minutes while she dismantles the rest of her equipment. The mermaid watches her work with focused eyes, back to her usual curiosity.

Well…perhaps not entirely. Allura pauses to stroke that raised nub meaningfully, and the mermaid’s eyes roll back. Allura supresses a smile as she removes the clamps.

Next time she’ll have to bring some more toys. A showerhead would be nice, if she can make it work underwater. And she’d like to see how the mermaid reacts to something inside her brood pouch, when it isn’t occupied by eggs.

Perhaps a vibrator. She could find a waterproof one, and the mermaid is _so_ curious about human devices, after all.

Getting the mers into their tanks is a laborious procedure. By contrast, getting them back into the main pool is fairly easy. It’s a design feature, both to reduce stress on the mers and to make things easier for the scientists. Allura undoes the straps around the mermaid’s tail and chest, leaving her hands bound. A lever slides the reinforced glass cover over the top of the tank – a precaution to protect the researchers once the mers’ clawed hands are freed, though only the black and the red have ever tried, and even they haven’t attempted it since the first couple of months after arriving. A series of switches, and the mermaid’s hands are free.

“Have fun with your friends,” Allura says to the mermaid, and turns the wheel that raises the bottom of the tank.

The mermaid blinks, then grins up at Allura through the glass and thrashes her tail. In one quick motion her fins are over the edge of the trough for the spillover water, and the mermaid pushes herself forwards as the base tips to send her sliding down the chute and into the water with a splash.

Allura walks over to the pool and rests her arms on the rail. All four mermen are hovering in the water below the trough outlet, solid yellow and sinewy blue and lithe red and sturdy black, exchanging clicks and whistles that Allura can barely hear. As the mermaid floats, moving her tail experimentally, they rise toward her and reach out to pull her into a tangle of arms and tails. The mermaid smiles, reaching out with shaking arms and nuzzling into the yellow’s neck.

Allura can’t hear much, but she _does_ hear the sharp whistle when the blue dives down to nuzzle at the mermaid’s well-used breeding slit. A rapid flurry of clicks flies back and forth, and then the mermaid leans back against the black, fingers digging into his scarred arm, and the blue licks eagerly where Allura’s fingers were working less than an hour ago.

Allura stays long enough to watch the mermaid reach climax for the first time, her unrestrained tail beating the water and her face hidden in the yellow’s hair, and then turns to close down the access tank. As the motors’ hum drops to silence, she seals the holding tank and starts wheeling it towards the research station. She’ll get these logged in, hand the station over once her shift replacement arrives in half an hour, and then head home for a _very_ pleasant night.

Judging by the muffled whistles echoing from the pool, she’s not going to be the only one.

**Author's Note:**

> So many minor scientific inaccuracies here. But hey, we're here for porn! All is good!
> 
> Fun fact: Pidge definitely said "Hi, Silver" when Allura first showed up. 
> 
> I have ideas for one of these for each of the Paladins, with Allura trying out different toys/kinks. But...time. Energy. We'll see!
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed! Let me know if you had a favourite line, I'm starting a collection!


End file.
